Book Review #135: If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio

 

On the day he gets released from prison, 10 years after being arrested for a crime he may or may not have committed, Oliver Marks is ready to tell the whole story. What actually happened all those years ago? In a group of theatre students, taking on Shakespeare's roles on and off stage, who was really to blame when a cast member ended up dead?

I had heard such good things about this book that made me so excited to read it. Not only do I love a murder mystery, but as someone who has studied literature, a murder mystery surrounding theatre and Shakespeare sounded like it would be right up my street.

So unfortunately, all of those positives made the book really really disappointing. Not that it was a bad book, just disappointing. 

But it didn't start off that way.

The story is told from Oliver's point of view, and I really liked being in his head. His storytelling reminded me a bit of the protagonist from 'The Fury', but a much better version.

The book was captivating from the first page. You instantly become really invested in the story.

I went back and forth on whether or not I liked the characters. In the first half of the book I thought they were interesting, but I didn't really know them and it was taking a while to learn anything particularly meaningful about them.

But in saying that, I felt like I really got to know and understand them in the second half, and that helped me to enjoy the story a lot more.

But then, once I finished the book, I realised that I didn't really know any of the characters at all, and I definitely didn't like any of them as much as the book seemed to want me to. In fact, once I closed the book I didn't feel anything for any of the characters - some of them I barely remembered.

And I think this is because there was a definite distance between the characters and the reader, and I'm not really sure why this was. It made a lot of the characters feel one-dimensional.

At first, I enjoyed the Shakespeare sections in the story, but as time went on I found myself skipping them more and more. They were fine, but once you get the gist, I don't think they were helping to move the story forward. In fact, in some places they were halting the story completely.

The biggest thing for me when reading a murder mystery is the reveal, and in this one, I was hoping for a big twist. So I was really disappointed with what it ended up being. It was so obvious throughout that I didn't think the main plot point would be based on something that the reader had already worked out.

Because of this, the ending felt lacklustre and underwhelming.

Overall, as I've already said, because of the hype for this book, I was so disappointed with it and still am. As well as it was written and crafted, ultimately getting to the end and being able to see the whole story, it wasn't what I wanted it to be at all.

2/5